


what you want

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-TMP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 19:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12688797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: Getting drafted for one life or death mission doesn't necessarily mean he has any intentions of accepting a new comission.





	what you want

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sleepymccoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepymccoy/gifts).



> when I offered a fic to sleepy as a congratulations for her degree (CONGRATS SLEEPY), she requested something with Spock as a professor and Bones doing "whatever the fuck he was up to in between the end of the series and the motion picture". That's not exactly what this is!!!!!! But I hope you enjoy it anyway, you goddamn blessing to the spones fandom

Len drags his feet, letting his tour guide- an enthusiastic young woman whose pips indicate she’s soon to graduate- pull ahead of him. She’s so caught up in her well-rehearsed speech that she doesn’t seem to notice his absence, plowing through the crowded Academy sidewalks with the confidence of seniority as the other cadets part around her.

He should probably feel bad about ditching her; she seems like a perfectly nice girl. Likely to go far in Starfleet, if the obvious respect her peers have for her is any indication.

Len _should_ feel bad, but he doesn’t. As soon as kids start slipping between them, taking advantage of the empty sidewalk she leaves in her wake, he turns smartly on his heel and peels away.

Damned ridiculous, being led around as if he’s never been here before. Just because he graduated from med school and _then_ joined the ‘fleet doesn’t mean he’s never set foot on the fucking campus. Jim _did_ cajole him over to this side of the country a good handful of times before they fully drifted apart, in those godawful years after the mission ended.

Len shoves his hands in his pockets, hiking his shoulders up to his ears with a huff. “Godawful”, he has no idea where that came from. He didn’t have to deal with alien lifeforms committing murder or stealing bodies or impersonating Chicago mobsters, he wasn’t treating dumbass officers who had no idea how to take care of themselves- just normal, _civilian_ dumbasses- and, of course–he got to see Joanna on a regular basis.

Retirement was- is- a _retreat_.

The only reason he’s even still in San Francisco, over a month after the successful resolution of the V’ger incident, is that Starfleet won’t let him _leave_. Conscripted service his fucking–

“Conscripted service my fucking ass,” he announces loudly, and of the cadets nearby, only the youngest look over at him with surprise. The others, like college students everywhere, have long since been inured to the weird shit that comes out of people’s mouths on campus.

Len cranes his neck, shading his eyes form the sun as he tries to read the stupidly intricate script of the letters on the stupidly tall facade of the nearest building. He figures his tour guide must have noticed by now that she lost him, and he draws quite a bit of attention, being dressed in civvies and also forty-odd years older than the cadets on either side of him; he needs to get off the street.

It’s either an astronomy building, he decides, or they slapped Sally Ride’s name on something random.

With a furtive glance back the way he came, Len takes the steps two at a time as he tugs off his scarf. The blast of heat is unpleasant when he presses through the heavy, wooden doors–what is it about lecture halls that prevents them from setting their thermostats at anything in between glacial and tropical?

Makes him feel a little nostalgic, actually.

Len grins, rubbing his hands together. Maybe he can find an interesting lecture to sit in on, before the security officer assigned to his case- an exasperated young man named Harvey- tracks him down again. Or maybe–

“Spock,” he blurts, and for a second he thinks he’s just mistakenly shouted at some other Vulcan.

Then the pointy-eared bastard turns, one eyebrow raised, and the cadet he’s speaking to steps neatly to his side, her gaze flicking over Len with a spark of curiosity.

“Dr. McCoy.” Spock inclines his head in greeting as Len drifts closer, his hands folding neatly behind his back.

“Have you taken on a lecture series?” Len asks, and he doesn’t even bother to hide his interest. He’d heard Spock was being offered a captaincy, now that he was re-committed to Starfleet, but neither Nyota nor Jim had breathed a word about this.

Spock ignores him, his dark gaze taking in Len’s civilian clothes with a hint of a frown at the corners of his lips. “Have you not accepted the renewal of your commission?” he asks, voice sharp; the cadet raises an eyebrow as she glances at him sidelong. “Admiral Kirk had implied–”

Len guffaws. “Jim’s still riding the high from having his silver lady back for those few short days. He hasn’t figured out yet that it’s not going to be like old times just because he pulled some strings and got me drafted for one mission. He’s still on desk duty, and I–” He rubs his eyebrow and sighs, his mirth fading as swiftly as it had come. “I still have a life back in Georgia.”

Spock tilts his head. “Yet you have remained in San Francisco.”

Len glances at the still-present cadet- she’s looking back and forth between the two of them with surprisingly visible interest- and offers Spock an uncomfortable shrug. “The admiralty’s pulling out all the stops,” he drawls. “They’re trying to sweeten the deal until I stop saying no, and in the mean time, they’re using every regulation they can to keep me in town.”

Spock nods as if this doesn’t surprise him. “It was a severe oversight to have allowed you to leave Starfleet without protest in the first place,” he states gravely.

Len rocks back on his heels, blinking, but his surprise quickly diffuses into a soft thrum of pleasure. He lets his grin spread across his face and reaches out to brush his fingertips over Spock’s sleeve. “Missed you, too,” he teases.

Before Spock can respond, the door behind them opens and brings with it a blast of sound from the street beyond. Len can hear- faintly, still a good distance off- someone asking, “Have you seen an older guy, kind of an asshole, dressed in civvies–”

Len claps Spock on the shoulder. “Good talk,” he declares, and hurries past them down the hall. He calls back, “Pass my love on to Harv for me, won’t you?”

The last thing he hears, before he’s rounded a corner into a gaggle of bright-eyed first-year cadets, is Spock’s shadow addressing him in Vulcan, her words indecipherable but her tone curious, perhaps even downright _fascinated_.

Len grins to himself as he re-wraps his scarf. Now, if he were the back exit onto the next street over, where would he be?

   

* * *

    

Nyota heaves a dramatic sigh and presses her shoulder against his, and when he lolls his head to look at her- good food, great alcohol, and better company leaving him feeling too pleasantly sluggish to properly lift it from the back of the patio bench- her gaze is fixed on the San Francisco skyline where it spreads out in front of them, glittering in the night.

“I feel like I don’t even know what I want any more,” she tells him. Her voice is softly plaintive, and he straightens just enough to drape his arm across her shoulders, letting his cheek come to rest against the top of her head.

“You want your own command; you always have.” Len rubs her arm with one hand, a sardonic little grin tugging at the corners of his lips. “God only knows why.”

She huffs, and it’s not quite a laugh. Still, he knows his bad joke managed to cheer her up a little, and there’s a smug sort of satisfaction nestled in his chest as he takes another sip of his mint julep.

“It always seemed so far out of reach,” she admits. “Like a pipe dream.”

“And now that it’s almost in front of you, you’re not sure what to do with it.”

Nyota laughs; it’s a sad, anxious little sound. Her fingertips are tracing patterns in the condensation on her bottle of beer. “That obvious?”

“That normal,” he counters, nudging her knee with his. “It happens to all of us, darlin’. Just don’t let your doubts take over and keep you from what you want.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, and Len doesn’t bother trying to guess what she’s thinking. Nyota, out of all of them, has always had the easiest time of expressing herself; if he gives her enough time, he’s sure she’ll find the right words.

And she does.

“What if it turns out it’s not what I want at all?” she whispers. She shrinks in on herself, just a bit–ashamed to be having these doubts, or maybe worried he’ll simply dismiss them without a second thought.

She’s a strong woman, Nyota Uhura, and she’s never wanted anyone’s approval of her decisions–but this late at night, in the company of a friend and under the influence of alcohol, even the strongest need reassurance.

Len holds her tighter and turns his glass to study its contents moodily, giving a self-deprecating snort. “Well, I guess _you_ would fulfill your obligations and then move on to what’s next,” he tells her, his voice as quiet as hers. “And whatever you decide it is you actually want, you’ll go and get it, and dazzle us all in the process.”

Nyota huffs, rolling her eyes, and Len smiles even as he tells her softly, “But you can’t know whether or not you really want a command until you try for one.”

She slumps into his side, the tension leaving her all at once. “How’d you get that miserly reputation of yours, Lenny?” she teases. She reaches over to knock her bottle against his glass, a teasing grin playing at the corners of her lips. “You’re just one big softie at heart.”

Len grunts, informing her drily, “Judicious application of hyposprays. Damned near managed to drive even Jim off, way back when.”

Nyota extricates herself from under his arm, shifting in her seat so she can studying the line of his profile, and he can feel himself start to tense under that piercing gaze. “Speaking of Jim,” she begins.

Len winces. “Nyota…”

She ignores the warning in his tone. “What is it _you_ want these days, Dr. McCoy? Because this purgatory you’ve let yourself be trapped in–”

“ _Let_ myself–”

She scoffs. “I know you, Len. If you wanted to be back in Georgia already, you wouldn’t have let a bunch of bullshit regs that don’t even _really_ apply to you keep you here. You’d have told Starfleet to shove it and been on the first shuttle back to Meridian, or wherever the hell it is you’re from.”

Len pulls his arm off of the back of the bench, propping his elbows on his knees as he leans forward, staring moodily into his glass once more. “Meridian’s in Mississippi,” he mutters.

“Not the point,” she tells him kindly, rubbing him comfortingly between his shoulder blades. “All your hemming and hawing has finally started to make even Jim nervous, you know. He’s putting up a good front for the rest of the admiralty, but he’s worried you really are going to turn down your commission.”

“Can’t let things go on like this forever, can I?” Len asks, sighing, and tosses back the rest of his drink in one go. He turns the glass over and sets it on the balcony railing before settling back into his seat, chewing on his lip.

She lets him sit in silence for a good five minutes, and then she heaves another sigh. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she orders.

“Spock’s teaching,” he blurts, then blinks. “My god, you’ve already mastered that authoritative voice, haven’t you?”

“I’m doubting whether or not I want a command, not whether or not I’d be good at it,” Nyota teases, and the light scrape of her nails at the back of his neck is comforting as she smiles at him, her dark eyes soft.

“Spock’s teaching?” she asks, leadingly, when he remains quiet for a long moment.

Len drums his fingers on his thighs, shaking his head. “That’s not why… I’ve only known _that_ for a few days. Jim was more focused on waxing poetic about the captaincy they were offering him, and you and I’ve been…” he gestures vaguely.

“Not talking about Starfleet because up until now, I hadn’t managed to get you drunk enough to agree to do so,” Nyota fills in, her voice thick with amusement.

Len barks a laugh. “Jesus. Yeah, alright, I’ve been avoidin’ this conversation.”

“Because you don’t want to let them renew your commission, but you haven’t been willing to break Jim’s heart?” she suggests, though she doesn’t sound like she believes it.

“Because…” Len blows out a breath. “Because I went after what I thought I wanted, and it turned out I was wrong.”

He doesn’t look at her as he steals her beer. It tastes like piss; he genuinely has no idea why she drinks the stuff, but his julep’s gone and he really needs some more alcohol in his system.

“Are you talking about Georgia?” she asks him, and he rubs his hand over his face without answering. She sits back, muttering something in Swahili that he’s sure is something along the lines of “Jesus _fuck_.”

He stands abruptly, scowling out at the glittering streets of San Francisco. “I never wanted to be on that mission in the first place,” he says fiercely, curling his arms around himself as if he can shield his heart from his own words. “And maybe I enjoyed myself once we were out there, but there was a part of me that was always thinking of the moment I’d get to go home again. I resigned my commission the minute we touched down, stubbornly happy as a clam, and I stayed that way right up until the moment I realized I was walking around dreaming about the day I’d be back on a starship the same way I used to dream about Georgia.”

“Oh, Len,” Nyota says, softly.

He throws his arms wide, a desperate sort of smile on his face. “I have a life, Ny! I have a steady, pleasant job, I have friends, I get to visit Jojo at college every couple Saturdays- more often, if I’m willin’ to play nice with Joss and go same day she does–”

“But you’re not happy.”

He buries his face in his hands. “I’m not happy,” he admits, voice muffled. “And meanwhile _Spock_ is out here shaping the minds of impressionable young officers, with all his ‘logic this’ and ‘Surak that’.”

Nyota, bless her, ignores his bullshit in order to cut straight to the heart of the matter. “You’d be a great professor, Len.”

He huffs, setting one hand on his hip as he takes another swig of her beer, and shoots her a dirty look. “We were talkin’ about you,” he accuses, and she smiles up at him serenely. Somehow, she must’ve left the balcony and grabbed herself another beer without him even noticing.

She sips from the bottle delicately, raising her eyebrows at him. “Sounds like you’ve known what you want for a while now; you just haven’t been willing to admit it.”

Len rubs the bridge of his nose, rocking up onto his toes and then back down. “I’ll talk to Jim in the morning,” he says resignedly. “And you–” he prods a finger at her, narrowing her eyes. “You’re talking to him, too. You know he’ll do whatever he can to get you in the right position to take over a ship sometime in the next five years.”

Nyota salutes him lazily with her beer, a sly twinkle in her eye. “Yessir, Commander McCoy, sir.”

“Jesus.” Len balks. “They’re not going to try and fucking promote me, are they?”

The answering sound of her laughter curls up into the night, bright and loud, and maybe signing his life away to Starfleet is worth it just for that.

   

* * *

   

Len wipes his hands on his uniform pants before he knocks, willing himself to be a little less nervous. It’s just _Spock_ for God’s sakes! He’s known the man- Vulcan- for well over a decade now, and they’ve certainly had worse things to say to each other over the years than “Surprise! We’re coworkers again!”

He raps sharply three times, before he can lose his nerve again, and then another two for good measure. Sometimes Spock gets so caught up in something _fascinating_ that he doesn’t even hear–

The door swooshes open. He must not’ve been working, then.

“Doctor,” Spock greets, folding his hands inside his dark blue robes, and Len rocks up onto the balls of his feet and back down, at a loss for words.

“Wanted you to be the first to know,” he finally announces, after the moment drags on just slightly too long. He steps back, making quick work of the buttons of his coat, and then spreads it wide, an obvious invitation for Spock to study his attire. The beige jumpsuit doesn’t feel like home the same way his medical blues used to, but–

He’ll get used to it.

Spock raises an eyebrow. “You have not yet informed Admiral Kirk?”

Len huffs, prodding him in the chest as he shoves past into Spock’s apartment. “Fine; yes, I had to tell Jim, so you’re second. Third, actually, since Nyota’s the one who finally managed to talk me into it, and if you start counting every yeoman with a PADD for me to sign–” He swings to a stop in the middle of the room and sets his hands on his hips, glaring back at Spock. “But you’re the first person I’m _choosing_ to tell, just for the sake of the telling.”

There’s a glitter of amusement in Spock’s eyes as he moves away from the door, letting it finally slide shut. “I am honored.”

“You’re humoring me,” Len accuses. He tilts his chin up, turning on his heel to survey Spock’s living room. “But I’ll allow it,” he adds, a wisp of fondness in his voice as nostalgia rolls over him like a wave.

Late in the five year mission, sometimes he’d show up too early to walk to breakfast together and wait in the main room while Spock finished getting ready. Other times, they’d spend late nights on his Starfleet-issue couch working on reports, debating about any subject under the sun, or simply existing in one another’s presence.

He must have seen Spock’s quarters a hundred times, by the end–and for all that he’s never set foot in this building before today, he’s been in this _room_ before.

The furniture is different and the floorspace greater, leaving the overall effect much more subtle and open, but the general layout, the wall hangings, the books on the shelves, the lyre in the corner–they’re all the same.

“You really haven’t changed a bit,” he murmurs with a small shake of his head.

“I must disagree, Doctor.” Spock counters promptly, moving to join Len in the center of the room. “We are each a sum of our experiences; from moment to moment we are redefined in subtle ways. Our years spent apart have necessarily wrought changes–”

“ _Spock_ ,” Len interrupts, shoving his hands in his pockets as he smiles up at him. “Trust me; in all the ways that matter, you’re the same person you’ve always been.”

Spock tilts his head. There’s something soft in the lines around his eyes, something that makes Len’s heart constrict in his chest.

“Recent events have been highly effective at revealing my motivations in undertaking the rite of Kolinahr,” he says quietly, apropos of nothing. “I was concerned by the connection I had made to my human side throughout the years of our mission, and I sought to distance myself from it once more. I failed, Doctor; as such, I have finally put to rest my hesitance to embrace the person I became under the influence of your and Jim’s friendship.”

Len swallows hard. “Then you’re saying I’m right,” he says weakly.

“I am saying–”

Spock’s fingers are cool as they curl around the back of Len’s neck, cradling his skull in one large hand.

“–I was wrong,” he murmurs.

_Len forgoes the doorbell in favor of knocking, three sharp raps and then two more. Sometimes Spock gets so caught up in his work, or his meditation, that he doesn’t notice someone’s at the door. Len finds it a little endearing, almost despite himself._

_It takes over a minute for Spock to summon him, but Len just hooks his fingers in his belt and whistles as he waits. They’re on their way back to Earth–pending a lack of emergencies in the next two weeks, the_ Enterprise _has, for all intents and purposes, completed her mission._

_They’re a nice prospect, those quiet two weeks._

_Afterwards, he’s going back to Georgia- permanently, so long as he can weather Jim’s puppy dog eyes and come out with his convictions intact- but he hopes… well. Maybe he’ll have some visitors once in a while._

_“Spock,” he greets, grinning, when the Vulcan finally appears. He pushes past him into his quarters, almost bouncing with excitement. “Look, I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to say this for almost a week now, and–”_

_“Doctor.” Spock has not moved from the doorway. “May I inquire as to the nature of your visit?”_

_Len crosses his arms over his chest and huffs. “Kind of what I was attempting to get at just now.”_

_“This is a personal matter,” Spock surmises._

_“Sure, of course it is. Spock, I–”_

_“Doctor, I am in the process of completing the last of the crew evaluations; can this wait?”_

_Len scratches the back of his head, a rueful tilt to his lips. ”Not really,” he admits. “I may lose my nerve, and we just don’t have that much time left.”_

_With something that isn’t a sigh, because Vulcans do not sigh, Spock finally joins Len in the middle of the room. “I am listening,” he says. He sounds resigned._

_Ignoring the flare of anxiety in his gut, Len plods forward. “Look, Spock, I just wanted you to know that I’ve…” he stares up at those dark eyes and swallows hard. “I’ve come to appreciate your friendship. I may be resigning the ‘fleet, but whenever you’re on Earth, there’s a guest room with your name on it.”_

_“Doctor–”_

_“Wait, that’s–” Len holds up his hand. “That’s the chicken shit version, all right? There’s more to it, just give me a moment.” He closes his eyes, sucking in a deep breath, and then releases it all at once. Talking’s probably easier if he’s not watching Spock watch him; he keeps his eyes shut tight.  
_

_“Spock, I… I care about you very deeply. I’d like–that is, I understand that this is practically the worst time I could have brought this up, but I’m worried we’ll never get another chance if I don’t. I just–”_

_He makes a noise of frustration, opening his eyes, and simply yanks Spock down by his uniform shirt to plant one on him. That Spock- with his Vulcan strength- allows himself to be manhandled is promising; that he doesn’t reciprocate the kiss is less so._

_Len releases him and steps back, feeling more than a bit foolish. “If you’re interested,” he finishes awkwardly, unable to meet Spock’s eyes._

_“I do not believe this to be… wise, Doctor,” Spock says, with a voice that is uncharacteristically hesitant._

_“Right.” Len nods, straightening out his med blues. He’s pretty sure his face is about to spontaneously combust. “Well, that guest room’s up for grabs regardless. I’ll… see you around.”_

_And then he- for lack of a better word- runs._

_He barely sees Spock outside of a professional capacity for the remainder of the mission; it’s Nyota who tells him, sounding frustrated and forlorn, about Spock’s decision to undergo Kolinahr.  
_

Len presses up onto his toes as Spock leans down, meeting him in the middle. Spock is warm against him, tall and strong, and his hands are hesitant as they drift over Len’s back, so lightly as to be almost unnoticeable through the thick canvas of his coat. Len’s arms, of their own accord, curl tightly about Spock’s neck, and he clings tightly as he pours himself into the kiss.

When they draw apart, breathing heavily, Len prods Spock firmly in the chest with one finger. “This is _not_ why I came back to Starfleet,” he says, a note of warning in his voice.

Spock’s eyes glitter with amusement. “I am aware, Doctor.”

“I’m just saying, you don’t need to go getting a big head.”

“My cranium is of an average size for a Vulcan of my height and weight.”

Len practically growls, biting back the smile that wants to spread giddily across his face. “You know _damn well_ what I mean, Mr. Spock; so help me God if you decided to get a sense of humor after all these years–”

“Leonard.”

His jaw snaps shut as he stares up at Spock with wide eyes, and the Vulcan has the gall to look pleased with himself as he brings his hands to Len’s shoulders, encouraging his coat to slip from his arms to pool at their feet.

“I am gratified you have chosen to remain with Starfleet,” Spock tells him lightly. “Regardless of your motivations for doing so.”

Len smiles, reaching up to trace the curve of one pointed ear. “I finally figured out what I wanted,” he admits. “Take me to bed, Mr. Spock?”

“Yes, Doctor.”


End file.
